


Sleeping Heartaches

by audreycritter



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternative canon background, Batman holds a baby, Bruce actually talks, Damian holds a baby, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Heart to heart kind of, divided families, he used to be a good dad okay, it’s just been a while, mention of miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-03 21:57:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12155601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreycritter/pseuds/audreycritter
Summary: A winter patrol is cut short to take care of a baby. Damian isn’t prepared for it, or the conversation it leads to.And Bruce is pretty good with babies.





	Sleeping Heartaches

**Author's Note:**

> Heads up for slight current canon divergence. See notes after for more; I don’t want to give spoilers. 
> 
> Title from Falling Up’s “Bruise”

“Alfred, do we still have bottles and infant formula?” 

The Batmobile rumbled through the snowy streets, engine thrumming and heaters on full blast. There was a car seat in the back that Damian didn’t even know Batman _kept_ in the car, much less where it had been before Batman had installed it one-handed while holding a squalling human infant.

Over the comm, Pennyworth made no criticism about the use of proper names. He rarely did, and Father was the _worst_ about breaking his own rules on the comm link. Drake had told him once, on a rare afternoon when they weren’t bickering, that it hadn’t always been that way, but that he suspected Father had gotten tired of multiple people responding every time he said “Robin.”

“I do believe we have some, sir,” Pennyworth answered after a moment. There was a rustling, the creaking of a cabinet. “It is a month shy of expiry; shall I prepare some?”

Damian strained to hear him over the screeching from the backseat. It was a shrill and desperate noise. 

“Yes,” Batman said, drifting around a turn. “And find a blanket or two.”

If Pennyworth was surprised that they were enroute with a child, he didn’t sound it. “Very well.”

Batman reached across the dash and flicked the comm off, and his eyes were locked on the road beneath the swirling snow when he said, “Damian, try to calm him down.”

Scrunched down in his seat, resisting the urge to clap his hands over his ears, Damian froze. An order was an order but…

He must have hesitated too long, because Father growled, “Never mind,” and yanked one gauntlet and glove off with his teeth. Damian stared when Batman reached an arm back between their seats, twisting until he was at what must have been an uncomfortable driving angle, and put his hand near the shrieking baby. 

For a few seconds, the noise stopped and turned instead into a desperate sucking sound. Then it started up again, slow and stuttering like a small motor trying to turn over. 

“Shh,” Batman said, and Damian’s jaw almost dropped. He’d never…he’d never heard Father sound quite like that before. He gaped at him, and then forced his mouth shut. It was a useless attempt anyway; the infant was crying again.

“He’s hungry,” Damian said stubbornly. “Why won’t he just wait?”

“He doesn’t understand,” Batman said, his arm still shoved back between the seats. “He’s only a few months old, Damian. Dammit.”

The last word was directed not at Damian but at the general air in the car. Batman withdrew his arm and shook it a little. 

“Of all the times for this damn shoulder…” he muttered, more to himself than anything else, and then his arm snaked back toward the baby anyway. 

“I don’t see _why_ we’re taking the infant with us,” Damian said sourly. He was trained and disciplined and would _not_ cover his ears, he would not. “Surely the hospital or the police could care for him until a suitable home is found.”

“The police are less prepared than we are,” Batman said. “And the hospital will feed him and then— shh, almost there, kiddo— leave him alone to give priority to ill children. They’re overworked as it is. And we have time.”

His voice did that _thing_ again, in the middle when he spoke to the baby, where it was gentle and calm and made Damian feel like hitting something. It also made him feel strangely sleepy and safe, which he didn’t want to think about; he tried to remember if he’d ever sounded like that when he talked to Titus. He knew Grayson had, once when Titus had been stung by a wasp in the yard.

They pulled into the Batcave on tires slick with icy slush, their stop less abrupt than usual. Pennyworth was waiting with a blanket draped over one arm and a bottle in the other. 

Batman sprang out of the car, tearing his cowl off in the same moment. He tossed it behind on the driver’s seat and reached back in to unstrap the infant.

Standing with his feet on the floor of the car, the open door at his back, Damian folded his arms across the roof of the Batmobile and watched Father cradle the infant against his chest and make actual shushing noises.

Father. Making _shushing_ noises. 

“No, the blanket first,” he was saying to Pennyworth, when the bottle was offered. “He’s freezing.”

He somehow managed to flip the blanket all the way around the baby in just a second, without moving him very far, and then he took the bottle and the screaming stopped. The quiet was blissful. 

Father walked across the cave, not too quickly, and lowered himself into the chair in front of the computer. He propped his legs up, crossed, on the desk with a very small and tired sigh. 

Damian hopped down from the car and shut the door, hard. He began peeling off the mask, working a little bit of the glue away at a time, not bothering to go find the solvent that would make it easier. 

And now that it was quiet, he could feel himself calming. He hadn’t even realized how tense and stressed he was, how on edge his muscles like he was prepared for a fight. He unlatched his hooded cape. The hydrophobic coating was the only reason it wasn’t drenched with frigid, melted snow.

Curiosity, both about the now-calm infant and Father’s odd behavior, kept him from retreating to the workout mats or his room upstairs. He knew, or was fairly certain he knew, that Father had not met Grayson until much later after this period of childhood. He hadn’t met any of them young, as far as Damian knew, with the possible exception of Drake who may or may not have attended Wayne Manor functions as a small child.

He perched on the edge of the desk by Father’s boots and leaned forward, once, to peer at the tiny face. The infant’s eyes were heavy with sleep, already, half the liquid in the small bottle gone. Damian sat back and pressed his lips together, examining the child and Father. 

Father seemed unaware he was sitting there. He looked, to Damian, exhausted but otherwise…alright? Some of the hard lines had smoothed away from around his eyes and he was staring at the infant without reserve.

“Shall I look for nappies, Master Bruce?” Pennyworth asked, his voice _also_ softer than usual. Damian wondered if he was maybe losing his mind; maybe he ought to call Grayson and see if Zatanna could be brought in. Maybe this infant wielded some sort of sedative power and it was unwise to…

“Hm?” Father said, rousing as if from sleep. “Oh. Yes. We’ll probably need them before too long. Gordon is going to text when they have a place; it shouldn’t be more than a few hours.”

Pennyworth nodded, paused to look over Father’s shoulder and smile gently, and then he left for upstairs. Damian frowned and decided against Grayson. If there was some sort of magic, Grayson would likely fall harder and faster to its working than even Father had. Perhaps Drake. Drake did not seem the kind likely to be swayed by an infant.

The infant fussed and Father pulled the nearly empty bottle back. He shifted the baby to his shoulder and began patting. A moment later, there was a gagging belch and yellowish vomit all over the back of the computer chair and dripping down Father’s cape. 

“Is he ill?” Damian asked, edging slightly away.

“Find a towel,” Father said, leaning forward. He seemed to consider Damian’s question a second later, while Damian went to hunt for one of the clean towels near the showers. The fussing, which had promised to turn back into crying, died away.

When Damian came back with the towel, Father was checking the infant’s head and neck with his wrist. 

“No,” he said, after a moment. “I think he just ate too quickly. Hold him while I clean this up.”

And a second later, Damian was holding a baby in his arms, stiff and away from his body while Father started scrubbing at the chair with the towel. There was a plaintive wail and Father turned and then his hands, much larger than Damian’s own and coarse with callouses, were under Damian’s hands.

“Not like that,” he said, slightly irritated. “Like…here, sit down.”

Father _never_ invited him to _sit on the desk_. But it’s where he was motioning now and Damian didn’t hesitate. He hopped up, the baby jerking in his arms. Father’s expression was like displeased rock and Damian scowled down at the child causing so much trouble.

He waited for a harsh rebuke but when Father spoke, his voice was oddly gentle. Damian realized with a knot of horror that he was speaking to him, to him the same way he’d spoken to the infant. 

“Damian, have you ever held a baby before?”

Damian had saved children before. He’d carried young and howling kids away from crime scenes and smoking buildings, but they’d always been old enough to walk when he’d gotten them to safety. Grayson was usually there, or Father, or a police officer. He’d even calmed down those close to his own age and he liked to think he was fairly good at it, especially after studying how Grayson managed panicked children.

But a baby? 

“No,” he said. 

Father detached his cape and threw it over the chair, abandoning it and the mess. He sat on the long, steel desk next to Damian and reached over and talked in that soft voice to Damian and the baby while he repositioned Damian’s stiff arms.

“Elbow under his head, hold up his neck like— just like that. Forearm along his spine. Shh. Now, other arm. Hold his legs— you’re alright— and arms tucked in. No, not too tight— I know, I know— but not too loose. He wants to feel secure and small, but not crushed. There. See?”

Damian was about to retort something sarcastic because he was very conscious of Father’s correction, how mild and mellow it was compared to the way he gave orders or instructions on patrol or during training sessions, or even about homework. Then he looked down.

Wide, alert, deep brown eyes were staring right at his face, very intent and focused. 

“Oh,” Damian said, a little startled, because it was like something unlatched in his chest and he felt the way he had when Titus was a puppy, when Alfred the cat was small, and he would wait until he was _certain_ Grayson and Pennyworth were both far away before burying his face in soft fur and ruffling ears or scrubbing bellies. They had both already had spiky little teeth to gnaw on his fingers and would chase toys before whimpering for food. He’d bloodied Drake’s nose once when the older boy had held a ruined shoe in his hand and mumbled something about the “dumb dog.”

And this…this tiny _thing_ he was holding was worlds more dependent than either of the animals had been. Damian forced himself to swallow. For a sudden, wild moment he fiercely wanted to ask, “Can we keep him?” and he flung the desire away from him in the instant he recognized how insane it would be to give it voice. 

But for now, for a moment anyway, while Father finished wiping off the chair and moving the cape to a locker for cleaning, he could be the one between this tiny human and the world.

Damian knew how cruel, how hard, the world could be. It hurt his heart a little to think that the baby, with the awestruck brown eyes now slipping closed in sleep, would have to grow up and find that out. Maybe, if he held him just the right way, someday, he’d remember being safe. Damian had flashes of memory, occasionally, of feeling that way in Talia’s arms before…before, well, everything else. He didn’t like to think of it now, but sometimes, when he was between dreams and daylight or when he felt sick, he still missed it. He considered it, on the whole, a kind of weakness.

But maybe, maybe if she had loved him sort of like the way he wanted to protect this stranger, maybe it wasn’t a bad thing to remember and miss.

He knew he must have been older, a little, to remember it at all. 

And he’d been much, _much_ older when he’d met Father.

Father.

Damian looked up from the infant, who was now asleep but still opening and closing a tiny pink mouth while the eyelids flickered as if fighting slumber, to see Father standing there with his arms crossed over his chest, watching Damian watch the baby.

He felt a red flush rise in his cheeks at the expression on Father’s face, something proud and wounded at once, and it spurred his curiosity even as he ducked his head back down to stare at the infant instead.

“This is…” Damian began, trying to sort out his jumbled thoughts. “It’s not…the first…”

Father didn’t speak, waiting him out. Damian appreciated that. Sometimes, as much as he loved Grayson, his brother had a habit of jumping in to guess Damian’s words, to try to help him. Damian liked having the time to figure it out on his own.

“You’ve cared for an infant before,” Damian settled on saying. It wasn’t quite right, but it was close. “You know what to do.”

“I have.” Father nodded, when Damian glanced up. “Not for long.”

“Where did…who…” Damian felt stupid because it shouldn’t be this difficult to ask. He asked— _demanded_ , Pennyworth might say— things fairly often. He wanted to be told the whole truth, to be given relevant details, to know what would happen next. He liked knowing, being prepared. Finally, in a flat rush, he spat out: “Grayson was not a baby.”

As soon as he said it, he realized it sounded like an accusation. He waited for Father to rebuke his tone, to stride away and return later when his temper had cooled. Instead, there was a brief huff of a laugh. 

“Dick was a baby, once,” Father said and Damian swore inside, at how _pedantic_ it was. “But not when he was with me.”

“Then how?” Damian demanded, still on edge. The baby in his arms stirred and whimpered and Damian made himself relax his grip, his posture. That swell of ridiculous fondness was back in his heart and it scared him a little. 

Father met Damian’s fiery glare and the softness around his eyes and mouth fled. Instead of anger, or annoyance, he looked the way he had when Damian had found him with one side of his suit in shreds and his leg peppered with puncture wounds from explosion debris. It was pained for an instant, then shuttered. 

“There have been other babies, in Gotham. Not often.”

Father moved away and began unpacking his utility belt at the work station nearby. Damian wondered what exactly he had said that had been _wrong_ , because Father didn’t seem angry as much as he seemed…hurt. Damian hated that feeling, that he’d hurt him, because it had taken a long time to care at all and the idea of losing it, being numb to it again, scared him more than the tame reaction he had to the baby. He wrapped armor around himself inside like his hooded cape and braced himself, then barrelled forward.

Sometimes, the best way to know what Father was thinking was to shove into him.

“So, you learned when you took care of the first one. The first that you found,” Damian said. He could say the wrong thing because he _knew_ it was wrong and getting Father to contradict him and correct him on purpose was not the same as being stupid.

“Something like that,” Father said, lining up batarangs. “Alfred knew what to do.”

Damian narrowed his eyes and tutted, his tongue against his teeth.

“So, Pennyworth taught you.”

“No,” Father said. “I only took the first baby as far as an ambulance. It wasn’t long.”

“The second, then,” Damian said doggedly. 

“I read some books,” Father answered, tapping a vial of antitoxin against the table’s edge and examining it in the work lamp. He tossed it in the biohazard bin for disposal. 

“Because of the first baby.”

The tension had been building in Father’s posture from the first question, but instead of slamming a hand on the table, he pressed his palms flat against the surface and his shoulders sagged. Maybe he was being mindful of the infant now sleeping deeply in Damian’s arms, warm but not unpleasantly hot against him. 

For a long, long time Father didn’t speak and Damian stopped pushing.

“I don’t…” Father said, his voice small and hesitant. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

That was _not_ what Damian was expecting and it wormed right past his defenses, spiking dread through every part of him. It left him feeling sick in the pit of his stomach.

“I’m fine,” Damian said sharply. Father didn’t look at him.

“I bought the books because of you, Damian.”

Damian blinked. He blinked once, twice, then a third time. He stared down at the baby and then blinked a fourth time, his mouth dry and his head spinning.

“What.”

“Dammit to hell,” Father said under his breath. He left the workstation and dropped heavily into the computer chair, across from Damian. The desk held Damian high enough that he was looking down at Father’s matted, tousled hair; it was still a mess from the cowl. Damian watched as Father put a hand to his brow and then rubbed his chin, like he was in the midst of deciding something and needed to stall for time.

It was something _other_ men did. Father usually just took the time and made no show of apology for it. He still wouldn’t look directly at Damian.

“It’s hard…” Father said. He cleared his throat. “It’s hard to talk to you about this because I know you care for your mother. And that’s…that’s okay.”

 _I don’t_ , Damian wanted to snap, but he couldn’t make himself say it. It was hard to tell if it was a lie or not. 

The silence in the cave was so weighted that it was hard to move. Damian was surprised it didn’t wake the infant up, even though it was quiet, because it pinned him to the desk and was such a force. He wondered once more, very faintly, if the baby was somehow carrying or wielding magic. This was not at all how he’d expected the night to go.

“I don’t think I ever told you how much I wanted you, Damian.”

The quiet words filled the stillness like a thunderclap tearing a gray sky asunder in the breath before the rain reached the earth. 

Damian went cold and motionless all over, even his heart for a span long enough to make his ribs ache, and he couldn’t breathe.

“I bought books. I read articles. The day she told me, I started preparing. It…surprised her. I think she expected me to be angry.”

“You weren’t,” Damian said. It was a question, but he wasn’t brave enough to let it sound like one. He tried and failed to remember what his mother had told him about this; he didn’t know if they’d ever talked about it.

“I wasn’t,” Father said softly. “I was…happy.”

The word sounded like it was a foreign one on his tongue, like he wasn’t quite sure he was using it correctly. Damian didn’t think of himself as happy, or Father as a happy man, so maybe it wasn’t far from the truth.

“Why…” Damian, fearless and bold and powerful, shrank back from the question when he found he couldn’t ask it. He left just the beginning hanging there between them.

“She told me she lost you,” Father said simply, as if he’d asked anyway. “She told me you’d died. Then, then I was angry. But not at her. Not yet.”

“She lied,” Damian said, a bit needlessly perhaps, since he was sitting there with the limbs and head he’d always had, solid proof of the deception. 

“She lied,” Father repeated. “And I didn’t find out for a long, long time. I didn’t handle it well when…when I did find out. I’m afraid I took some of it out on you. It was one of the worst things I could have done.”

Now, Father stood and faced him, finally _looked_ at him and it was when Damian wanted to not meet his eyes, but did anyway. The hand against his cheek was rough but not hard. 

“She lied,” Damian said again, a bit stupidly now, because he _knew_ his mother and couldn’t bring himself to doubt the accusation. He wanted to, he _desperately_ wanted to. 

“I’m sorry,” Father said. “That you ended up with us, as parents. You deserve so much better, son.”

Damian swallowed and now he ducked his head, because he didn’t want Father to see the tears in his eyes. One of them fell on the blanket wrapped around the baby, who slept on, oblivious. He didn’t even know why he was crying. Somehow, none of it was _really_ surprising, except in strange ways; the ones that pricked the salty tears from his eyes were not the ones he thought would bother him.

The thing that _actually_ surprised him was that when the wet tracks worked down his face, what he felt was profound relief. It felt too big and messy to grasp, but he breathed a little easier, felt in that moment like the room upstairs where he kept his sketches and whetstones and books was more _his_ and not just by rights.

Father wrapped an arm around his head and pulled it tight against his chest, the Bat symbol against Damian’s forehead. He let himself rest there, bent forward in a tent over the sleeping baby. They didn’t move for a long time, until Damian’s back ached from leaning, and Father stepped back and put a hand on each shoulder.

He crouched a little, so his eyes were level with Damian’s. He looked serious but composed, and Damian remembered months ago, when he’d gone to Grayson after an explosive fight, and Grayson had sounded so _sad_ when he’d said, _He wasn’t always like this. He used to be better at it._

“I should have told you sooner,” Father said, and Damian suddenly understood what Grayson had meant. “But I didn’t know how, not without hurting you, too. I’ve never wanted to poison you against her. It was between us, as adults. It’s not something for you to have to fix.”

And _now_ the infant in his arms stirred and began to cry, sharply and impatiently. There was no warning between the first movement and the loud wail and Damian flinched. Father lifted the baby without a word of reproach and paced, bouncing the child with each step.

“I wonder where Alfred went,” Father said, a little roughly, and Damian knew he was embarrassed somehow. Maybe about what he’d said, or how he’d said it. Damian slipped off the desk and interrupted the pacing by planting himself immediately in front of him. He stared at Father’s boots. Father stared down at him; Damian could feel the stare on the back of his neck.

After a moment’s hesitation, he looked up.

“Thank you for telling me.”

Father was the one who blinked this time.

“You’re…” he shifted the infant to his shoulder. “You’re welcome.”

For a moment, Damian wondered what Grayson would do in this situation; would he fling his arms around Father and hug him? Would he try to joke, to get Father to smile? Damian was still trying to decide what the next course of action ought to be when Father stooped and kissed the top of his head, supporting the baby’s head with one splayed hand so the infant didn’t topple over backwards.

Then he straightened and was walking away toward the med unit, mumbling something about bottles and more food and why on earth Alfred had disappeared. The items emptied from the utility belt were in a neat line on the workstation; one of them made a noise. Damian leaned over to look at it, rubbing at his face, which felt raw and hot. 

“The Commissioner sent you a message,” he said, across the expanse of the cave.

“What’s it say?” Father asked, pouring some powder into a bottle with one hand. “Shh. Just a minute.”

Damian picked up the device, a tiny brick of a gadget meant for sending and receiving texts. Not many people had the number, and he didn’t think many of them knew how limited the access was. 

“They’ve found a social worker who can place an infant for the rest of the night. A respite family. There’s an address.”

“Good,” Father said, shaking the bottle in his hand. “I’ll suit back up in a minute. Tell him I’m on my way.”

“Should I come?” Damian asked. He was exhausted but didn’t think he could sleep and he didn’t like the idea of trudging upstairs alone to lie in an empty bed awake. 

“If you want,” Father said. “I wouldn’t mind the company.”

Damian made a beeline for his discarded hooded cape. There were times, he knew, when he wanted to be alone with his thoughts to examine them and piece things together; there were other times when solitude was overwhelming and he wanted a barrier between himself and the things he’d need to deal with later. He suspected that perhaps Father was a bit the same way.

Batman needed a Robin, but it was comforting that he _wanted_ one, too. 

And later, Damian could mull it over, sit and sketch through the conflict of knowing that it wasn’t _just_ as a Robin that he was, and had been, wanted. It was too new, right now, to jostle or consider intently, much like an infant. It would need time.

He reattached the hood, pulled his gloves back on, found adhesive for the mask.

Father was still feeding the baby, speaking very softly to the infant, with a rare smile on his face. The baby batted at the air, knocking the bottle, slapping Father’s chin. This got nothing more than a deeper smile. Damian found a clean cape for Father and carried it over.

“He’s cute,” Damian said, because this was the sort of thing he knew people expected to be said about babies and he thought he ought to say something.

“He is,” Father agreed. 

“I’ve nearly torn the Manor apart and there’s not a nappy to be found,” Alfred called from the top of the stairs. “Should I run out?”

“No,” Father called back up, the loudness startling the baby. The face twisted up in surprise and Damian held his arms out.

“I’ll hold him,” he said quickly, throwing the cape at Father’s shoulder. 

Father didn’t protest the exchange but he looked like he wanted to. He strode away from them to yell up to Alfred, “We’ve heard from Gordon. We’re going back out. Sandwiches when we get back? It shouldn’t be long.”

“You’re in a rather good mood,” Alfred said placidly from the stairs. “Maybe we ought to find another one.”

Father snorted in amusement and only Damian was close enough to see the shadow on his face. It faded quickly and he shook his head. “Go bother Dick or Jason. I’m done.”

When he walked past Damian on the way to the Batmobile, it was with a clap on the shoulder and a small smile that was not directed at the infant with his fists in Damian’s cape.

It was just for him. 

**Author's Note:**

> So, for those who don’t know or haven’t read it, Damian’s existence was PARTLY based on/inspired by a 1980s standalone graphic novel called “Son of the Demon.” In summary, Bruce and Talia are together and she gets pregnant. He is immediately excited and throws himself whole-heartedly into the future parenting gig. Talia begins worrying that he’ll get too “soft” and end up killed— he’s contemplating retiring Batman, living a normal family life.
> 
> So she fakes a miscarriage. She lies to him and pushes him away, and he goes home to Gotham. This comic makes no mention (as far as I know) of Dick or Jason. The baby is supposedly put up for adoption.
> 
> Grant Morrison has referenced this comic but also said he couldn’t remember what the story was and didn’t bother looking. He crafted the date-rape origin when introducing Damian. 
> 
> On and off, I’ve toyed with the idea of substituting the background. I don’t mind Morrison’s origin story when it’s dealt with appropriately, but I’m also eager for a canon where Damian’s birth is slightly LESS problematic even if it’s still fraught with abuse and deception. Ideally, it would be Son of the Demon canon minus the adoption on the final page (the adoptive parents are generic; the baby is sent with an ah Ghul heirloom implying Ra’s intends to keep track of him). 
> 
> So, this is essentially wish fulfillment fic but not pulled completely out of thin air.


End file.
